Fate for Beginners: Get Ready for the New FGO Anime

With Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia’s prologue released on August 4th, details have been given regarding the anime’s broadcasting schedule. The newest Fate anime has been slated to begin in Japan on TOKYO MX and AbemaTV starting October 5th, 2019. With only a few months left before it kicks off, let’s rewind and recap everything you need to know before diving in. We’ll be keeping this simplified for newcomers to the series. So let’s get started with this Fate for beginners guide!

Way back in 2003, Kinko Nasu teamed up with Takashi Takeuchi to found the game company Type-Moon. This became their platform to release the soon-to-be world-famous visual novel, Fate/Stay Night. The story followed a high school student named Shirou Emiya, who finds himself wrapped up in an age-old battle to the death known as the Holy Grail War. Seven humans, chosen by the Holy Grail, summon a heroic servant of legend, each of a different weapon class, and duke it out until only one pair is left standing to claim the grail for themselves. Their reward? A single wish of anything their heart desires will be granted. Shirou knows near-nothing about magic, let alone the Holy Grail, but is determined to win in what is marked as the Fifth Holy Grail War.

So what exactly does this have to do with the new anime? Truth be told, next to nothing. While it takes place in the same universe, and several heroic servant characters overlap in the story, Fate/Stay Night is a self-contained work. Still, having a general understanding of Holy Grail and heroic servants is necessary to avoid confusion. It is here that the plot of Fate/Grand Order begins, and steers the audience’s attention down a divergent timeline.

Fast forward in the story timeline to 2015. So begins the Chaldea Security Organization: a group of mage scientists founded by the United Nations to monitor mankind for potential extinction events. By their methods, they are able to see as far as a century ahead until a fateful day when a disturbance is detected, and mankind is seen to be wiped out in only three years. Enter Ritsuka Fujimaru, a new recruit for an experimental time travel project. With his assistant, Mash, the two are sent back in time to 2004 during the events of the Fifth Holy Grail War to located the cause, and prevent whatever tragedy it is that dooms mankind. After their success, another disturbance is picked up… and then another… and another.

Fate/Grand Order’s story follows a similar structure as it unfolds, sending Ritsuka and Mash across time to new destinations all over the world. Their mission is to restore order and collect the Holy Grail every time to end the cycle. So where does Absolute Demon Battlefront: Babylonia fit into all this? Well, Babylonia isn’t the first, or even the second chapter of their quest. It’s the seventh, taking them back to 2500 BC. After having just finished their time in Camelot, they are ready to take on King Gilgamesh in ancient Babylonia. Unknown to them is the much greater conflict between mankind and the gods they no longer worship.

The game has had a few OVAs, as well as a short film titled Fate/Grand Order -First Order- that covers the prologue chapter. However, Absolute Demon Battlefront will serve as the first televised series of the hit mobile game. AniplexUSA has already licensed the series for the English localization. For more information check out their website, and be sure to check back with J-List for future updates on streaming services and reviews.

If you’re already excited and can’t wait until October then grab your smartphones and download the free Fate/Grand Order mobile game, available on Google Play and in the App Store.